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Little Preachments 




HaJpb Jflbtrtson 



Zb* Cooperative Prtas 

Ltwiston, m»int 

1903 



Little Preachments 



By 

RALPH ALBERTSON 

n 

'"PHILOSOPHICUS" 

in The American Cooperator 




THE COOPERATIVE TPESS 
Lewiston, cMaine 
M D C CCCIII 



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Copyright 1903 

The Cooperative Association of America 
Lewiston, Maine 



ft* « • 



" Every Tub Must Stand on Its 
Own Bottom " 



These words are usually pronounced in the man- 
ner of wisdom and with a profound sense of the 
utterance of a vague but mighty truth. We do not 
presume to dispute them, in fact we universally 
accept and proclaim them. They constitute pre- 
mises and conclusion, the whole argument, the last 
word. They give consolation to selfishness, and 
condemnation to " unsuccessful " generosity. The 
sagacity underneath them is acknowledged alike by 
the saved and sinners. 

Examine the text : 

It would be approximately true if it were about 
tubs. As a matter of fact it has no reference what- 
ever to tubs. As applied to human relationships, it 
is a lie. 

It contains more blasphemy when once stated 
than can be packed into the poor ^foolish word 
''damn " in a week. 

It contradicts heaven and -earth. It denies the 
Bible. It rules the love of God out of human life. 
It violates every ideal of social order and harmony. 
It excludes the Divine Presence. It overthrows the 
Kingdom of Heaven. 

Even tubs would not stand on their own bottoms 
very long if some one did not take care of them. 

Men are not tubs. They are not independent and 
self-sufficient. They cannot and do not stand by 
themselves. No man can stand alone. Every one is 



LITTLE 

Every Tub Must Stand on Its Own Bottom " 



dependent upon dozens, hundreds and thousands of 
others. We all of us stand by the help of other 
people. Except for the help we get we could not 
keep body and soul together for twenty-four hours. 
Other people made the house I live in, the clothes I 
wear, the food I eat, and the tools I work with. 

The very thoughts I think are borrowed from 
other people. A subtle process of impartation ex- 
plains my every virtue. My vices I have caught like 
contagious diseases. In our virtues and our vices 
we are altogether mixed up and crossed with other 
souls. When every one of us gives account of deeds 
done in the body as we surely must, we shall find 
that in Fate as w 7 ell as in Nature we are inextricably 
mixed up with other souls. Damnation might give 
a hint of isolation and Guilt gives a suggestion of 
that hint, but isolation itself is possible only in 
death, and with death we have nothing to do. 
Always remember that we cannot be dead and alive 
at the same time. 

There are no tubs standing on their own bottoms 
in heaven nor in hell. 

The nearest possible approach to that condition 
will be found in the United States. A part of the 
people don't know any better than to try to do it, 
and the rest of them foolishly deceive themselves 
into the idea that they have actually accomplished 
it. Some cannot, but try to ; and others cannot, but 
think they have. What was it that Carlyle said 
about the thirty millions? 

There is a man sawing wood in the yard next door 



PRE A CHMENTS 



" Every Tub Must Stand on Its Own Bottom" 

to me as I write, and there is bitterness in his heart. 
His wages are small but he tells me he has enough to 
eat. He is something more than cattle. His needs 
are more than food and clothes. The bitterness in 
his heart is that of loneliness. It is the unsatisfied 
hunger for fellowship, the native longing for brother- 
hood. He has here and there a "friend," whatever 
that may be; and one or two unsatisfactory women 
have blessed his life somewhat, but still the dreari- 
ness is there, and he is often bitter and despondent. 
Ail of that could be removed by fellowship and love. 
He is a social being. God created him for the com- 
munion of souls. His nature is unsatisfied with any- 
thing less than the Kingdom of Heaven. He does 
not need a better job, nor more wages, nor an eight- 
hour day, nor a public library, nor a night school. 
nor a vacation, nor old-age insurance, nor all these 
things, and a thousand more like them so much as 
he needs the soul-comfort and the soul-development 
of a divinely human mutualism. 

Tubs dry up, their hoops drop off, and they tall to 
pieces. What a pity ! Encircled by the bonds of an 
industrial fellowship such a fate would be unknown 
to men. "United we stand and divided we fall " — 
Grreat Lincoln's rule works both ways, and it is as 
applicable to the present industrial crisis as it was 
to that in which it w 7 as spoken. "The next great 
word is association," and it always has been the 
great word. It is the only way of social salvation. 

Society should be so organized that it would at 
least be possible for us who are strong to bear the 



PRE A CHMENTS 



" Every Tub Must Stand on Its Own Bottom " 

burdens of the weak and so to till our lives full of 
the law of Christ. 

The refusal to do this is the anarchy of life to- 
day, breeding billionaires and paupers, debauching 
everything that is sacred, and tilling the land with 
poverty and strife and woe. Poor souls that stand 
alone but to fall ! Frantically we clutch at one an- 
other, trying to get something that somebody else 
lias made, or struggling for a foothold where another 
is firmly implanted. When a weaker one seeks to 
lean upon us, when a little one needs help, when a 
fallen one sends an imploring glance and prayer 
toward us, can we talk about tubs ? 

The text is anarchy. 

God would place even the solitary in families. 

Clear common sense demands a rational, compre- 
hensive, kindly plan of adjustment for the interde- 
pendent relationships of human life. 

We are members one of another. 

Even John D. Rockefeller, the richest man in the 
world, cannot stand like a tub. 

He stands upon the backs of a million men. 



Being A Christian 



Being a Christian and professing to be one are 
two different things. The profession of Christianity 
is a delusion while Christianity itself is the world's 
hope. It is a good thing to say you are a Christian, 
modestly, providing it is true, but the saying of it — 
the professing it or the confessing it, does not make 
it so. Let not the preacher in his zeal for imaginary 
stars in his imaginary crown lead you to think that 
in joining the flock of believers you have done over- 
much. That is good as far as it goes but it does not 
go far. Join the flock, but be just as different from 
some of them as you can. Be a church member, but 
don't let that take the place of being a Christian. 
Subscribe to all the good creeds if you can, but 
remember that no creed ever made any person a 
Christian. 

Christianity is a standard of living. Being a 
Christian is obedience to that standard. The theo- 
logians may shake their wise heads, and talk sagely 
about "the plan of salvation" and "the efficacy of 
atonement" when you challenge them with "What 
would Jesus do? " but you may safely disregard the 
theologians. You may safely do as Jesus would do. 
There are no risks about that. It does not require 
an "education " nor an "experience." It is safe to 
have the simple faith of a child, and do right. It is 
safe to love, whether you ever had an emotional ex- 
perience in prayer-meeting or not— whether you ever 
joined a church or not. It is safe to do unto others 
whatsoever ye would that others should do unto you. 



LITTLE 

Being a Christian 

The mental or spiritual attitude of the real 
Christian is that of faith and hope and love toward 
God and man. That we should have faith in God 
the churches all teach, but that we should equally 
have faith in men is denied. This is the atheism of 
the churches. It is their infidelity, their unbelief. 
If I did not have faith in men I could not have faith 
in God. If I did not have high hopes for men I 
should not have hope toward God. If I did not love 
my brother whom I have seen I should not love God 
whom I have not seen. The Christianity of any 
Christian may be measured by his faith and hope 
and love toward other men. No man can love his 
fellow-men and really leave God out. 

Nor can any man love God or his fellow-men with 
his mind. Christians have mental attitudes, but the 
best of mental attitudes is not Christianity. Love 
is the business of hands and feet, of work and 
wages, of meat and drink, of mechanics and com- 
merce, of agriculture and politics. Your Christianity 
is what you do, much more than what you feel or 
think. Discipleship involves walking, doing, work- 
ing, being. Being a Christian is not a matter of 
profession, nor confession, nor experience, nor elec- 
tion, but it is a matter of what you are as compared 
with what Christ is. Our Christianity is judged by 
the life of Christ. "Ye are my friends if ye do 
the things I have commanded you." 

" Can a man be a Christian and a successful busi- 
ness man ? " Can a man be a man and a pig? Yes, 
and no,— all depending on the definition given your 

8 



PRE A CHMENTS 



Being a Christian 



terms. I will find you as many Christians tending 
bar as you will find me Christians organizing trusts. 
I dispute no man's Christianity. What I know is 
that a man can be so much a Christian that he will 
not be known as a successful business man nor as a 
tent-maker. 

Being a Christian is sometimes confused with its 
opposite, which is being a nobody. "Oh, to be noth- 
ing " would certainly be not to be a Christian. It is 
an easy job for a lazy man to be a nobody. There 
are plenty such. A real Christian will amount to 
something. He will be somebody and do something. 
He will stem the tide, he will climb an uphill road, 
he will be persecuted and slandered, he will perhaps 
be put out of the church. He will not be greater 
than his Master nor far above his Lord in the matter 
of friends, personal comforts and ecclesiastical stand- 
ing. So long as men are selfish, bigoted, ignorant 
and small, he must be a scapegoat for them. 

Following Jesus is the operation. It's simple but 
it's hard. You can't find out how at any prayer- 
meeting I ever attended. You'll have to go to the 
Record. You had better keep shy of the ]S"ew 
Testament, tho, or arm yourself with plenty of com- 
mentaries and an orthodox preacher if you are look- 
ing for the way to be a Christian and love money. 
It isn't in the book. 

Being a Christian cannot be overdone. The world 
is sick of the pretension of Christianity. God will 
spew it out of his mouth. Be real, be intense, be 
honest with yourself, be a Christ. 



"Walk in Love as Dear Children" 



We grown folks, in spite of our professions of 
humility, do not like to be called children. Our big- 
ness is a very artificial thing, and very silly. Our 
dignity play is a great show. There ought to be 
some one somewhere in the universe to enjoy the 
humor of it. Perhaps the angels do. Whether it is 
more humorous than pathetic, I could not guess. I 
have both laughed and cried over snap-shots of it in 
my own consciousness. It is funny and pitiful, 
rather than disgusting. 

When men begin to be great and to amount to 
something, then are they as little children. 

There are three common ways of dealing with 
this text. One is to relegate it to the kindergarten. 
Another is to deem it obeyed in the shallow forms 
and functions of ordinary church relations, and as 
being not at all inconsistent with law-suits and red- 
hot competition. The third is to shelve it, along 
with the rest of the best things in the Bible, as 
being too high an injunction for real life, too good 
to be practical, too heavenly for human nature. 

There is one uncommon way of treating this text 
which need startle no one, though it will be foolish- 
ness to many, and this is that way of genuine faith 
and absolute obedience. Faith accepts the high and 
broad implications of truth, and obedience refutes 
the claim that it is impractical. 

To me the text is good statesmanship. 

If it were inapplicable under present conditions, 



10 



PRE A CHMEN TS 



" Walk in Love as Dear Children " 

no matter how perfectly ideal it might be, it would 
not be good statesmanship. Neither would it be 
sensible religious exhortation. 

It is the way to do, at home and abroad. 

It is the way in which Europe could conquer 
China. It is the way tor Uncle Sam to become eter- 
nally established in the Philippines. It is the prac- 
tical and powerful political policy by which a nation 
may achieve permanence and success. It is today 
perfectly possible. If a nation cannot promote the 
commercial ambitions of its people without doing 
unloving deeds it had better have no commerce. If 
it cannot find employment for its capital without 
the creation of a great war debt for which the people 
can be taxed, then its capital had better be sunk in 
the great sea. If it cannot find employment for its 
laboring men except as it maintains a great standing 
army then it had better learn something about good 
roads and how to build them with honest labor and 
pay for them with honest money. If it cannot 
maintain peace without continually fighting for it, 
then it has cause for challenging the whole structure 
of its military methods'. 

The text is not about prayer-meetings, but about 
work and wages, industry and commerce, labor and 
thought— walking. 

This is the most revolutionary doctrine ever 
preached on earth. If the people should really walk 
in love as dear children there is scarcely an institu- 
tion in the industrial, political, social, and religious 
life of the world that would not be swept away by 



11 



LITTLE 

" Walk in Love as Dear Children " 

the onrushing tide of brotherhood. Certainly labor 
would be without price, and capital would be used 
without being made an instrument of extortion. 
Exchanges would be conducted without increase or 
profit. There would be great and small, but there 
would not be rich and poor. There would be equit- 
able exchange of service, and there would be free 
service. If the people walk in love they shall walk 
together. Cooperation in all the walks of life, har- 
mony in all the work of life, fellowship in all the 
ups and downs of life, and love in everything is the 
program. When this is done, and not till then, shall 
we have peace and plenty. 

To deny that in industry and politics men may 
and must walk in love as dear children is rank 
infidelity. To arch the eyebrows and sneer is blas- 
phemy. While to believe it is to be a fool, to doubt 
it is to be damned. The contradiction of the prac- 
ticability of the ideal is the deepest-dyed profanity 
known to man. 

That which ought to be shall be. We shall walk 
in love as dear children. It is not too high an ideal 
to attain, nor too good a life to live. The world's 
business and its government are going to be con- 
ducted according to this rule. Our daily walk shall 
be in conscious and avowed love for all our fellow- 
men, and this love shall find embodiment in all the 
institutions of the world's social machinery. 

We are tired of hunting for a job that some other 
fellow has got ahead of us, and holding down a job 
that some other fellow needs and wants. We are 



12 



PRE A CHMENTS 



" Walk in Love as Dear Children " 

tired of collecting" debts, and worrying over those 
we cannot pay. We are tired of always getting the 
best of some one else, and always having some one 
else get the best of us. We are tired of the people 
who live better than we do, and of the people who 
live cheaper than we do. We are tired of our com- 
parative pride, and of our comparative poverty. We 
are tired of the cry of the poor. We are tired of 
the vanity of the rich. All our weariness can be 
cured by fellowship. 

Let\s stop it all. 

Greatness and Wisdom, more than that of Pier- 
pont Morgan and the University of Chicago, are in 
that soul who walks Broadway or a plowed field 
lovingly and as a little child. 



13 



Life and Death 



One cannot be both alive and dead at the same 
time. I will explain a little : 

Most people expect to die. Few people expect to 
live. " Prepare to die " is the warning of sanctimo- 
niousness, and the notions of life after death are 
not only vague but positively ghostly and deathish. 
There is, in the popular mind, a misty idea of a 
vapid, "singing and sitting," useless existence 
"after death " without purpose or progress or charm 
or interest, and it is chosen and sought wearily in 
preference to hell, its only alternative. 

Jesus was a prophet of life. If people would 
really believe what He said, those of them that have 
anything to live for would expect never to die. It is 
pitiful to hear children of God talk about " having " 
souls. No man " has " a soul, he has an ever-chang- 
ing body. That body is always decaying and always 
building up. Some day the building-up process 
ceases and the decaying process continues. That 
may be death to you, but it is not to me. It isn't a 
good thing to live in a graveyard. The habit brews 
false ideas of life and death. I believe in the resur- 
rection of the body simply as a creedal form of words 
that stands for the ultimate redemption of the 
material universe. My poor, abused, diseased, un^ 
stable body is not me. It may be scattered in dust 
to the four winds of heaven, and yet I shall be. I 
am not going down into the grave. 

Doubtless there is such a thing as death. Script- 
ure indicates it, and reason indicates it, but I have 



14 



PRE A CHMENTS 



Life and Death 

nothing to do with it, and nothing can be known 
about it. There are no preparations to make for it ; 
there is nothing beyond it; all religion and philoso- 
phy have shunned it. If you ever die this death 
you won't be alive. 

Religion has to do altogether with life, and not at 
all with death. It has to do with the whole of life. 
You may speak of life as now and hereafter, but you 
will never know any hereafter. It will be now when 
you get to it, and it will be just as naturally now as 
this is. There are not two lives for a man to live, 
temporal and eternal,— it is all one. The connection 
is as perfect as that between youth and old age. 
Eternity is already begun. You are in it right now. 
You are living eternal life. You have no more right 
to be mean now than you will have in the Sweet By 
and By. God will not turn you into a putty angel 
that cannot do wrong. This year of grace will leave 
its mark on you a Long Time. It is just as bad to 
skin your neighbor in this now as it ever will be in 
any other now. You are face to face with the respon- 
sibility of Being Alive. 

The Way to be sure of eternal life is, first, I 
should think, to make sure of manhood or woman- 
hood. No soul will die for whose life there is any 
good reason. This is salvation by Christ. If the 
knowledge of Christ has not made a man of you, 
there is something wrong with the knowledge. This 
is a universe with a purpose, and that quality of 
purposeful ness extends to every atom in it. Jesus 
tried to enrich life. His teachings are the Way to 



15 



LITTLE 

Life and Death 

Live. There is no other way. But He could not 
give life after the manner of doling soup out of a 
kettle. He could not pass it out to candidates for 
the asking nor for the baptizing. Life is imparted 
by the divine agency wherever it will be received.. 
The process is natural. Wherever the physical and 
spiritual conditions of right living are complied with 
there it is bestowed. In every soul who accepts the 
ideal, is the life of the ideal generated. Salvation 
by Christ is simply the process of learning to live 
the Christ-life. 

There is a certain expectation of being good and 
happy after death that leads to certain disappoint- 
ment. I do not believe that we are going to be so 
completely separated from our present selves as we 
generally think. Change, to be sure, is the law of 
our lives, and we shall be changed, but not as we 
think. Earth is the only ground on which a hope of 
heaven can be built. We are now living in holy 
eternity. There is as good an opportunity now as 
there ever will be to look yourself squarely in the 
face and discover who you are. If you don't you will 
be surprised some day to discover that altho you 
have "shuffled off this mortal coil" you are the 
identical creature that you had always more than 
half suspected yourself of being. 

Pending the advent of realized idealism there are 
certain comforting considerations connected with 
the death of the body. We shall not pay any more 
tariff on sugar. There will be neither rent nor inter- 
est to pay. Water and light will be free. There 



16 



PRE A CHMENTS 



Life and Death 

will be no slums. We shall neither be afraid of the 
wealthy nor ashamed of them. We shall -own and 
enjoy all things in common. Life will not have to 
be wasted in a losing struggle against old debts and 
transportation charges. There will be a great, deep- 
seated Trust, as large as the community of interest, 
which will trust everybody. 

If we have to go before socialism gets here, we 
still shall lose nothing. All that is good and glad in 
socialism awaits us "over there." All the sublimi- 
ties of character, the expanses of knowledge, and 
the ecstacies of fellowship are before us. . 

It is with life, not death, that we have to do. 



17 



The Forgiveness of Sins 



I believe in the forgiveness of sins. 

So does every one else, so far as I know. 

At least, so ttiey think. 

You will find it in all the creeds— where it signi- 
fies a willingness on the part of the testator to be 
forgiven. 

The forgiveness of sins is obedience to the law of 
love. 

A man who is not willing to apply the law to him- 
self will find some way to avoid acknowledging that 
God applies it to himself. Not being willing them- 
selves to forgive, they have devised lies representing 
God as first collecting the full price and penalty of 
sin from One, and then, after collection, pretending 
to "fully and freely forgive" a select few of the 
sinners. 

This theory has made it easy for religious men to 
collect debts with an iron hand, while making volu- 
ble pretenses of love and forgiveness with their 
mouths. 

The mouth cannot do it. 

Nor is God doing that with us which it would be 
dishonest for us to do with one another. Nor is he 
splitting hairs ethically. by-transferring responsibility 
to a mortgagee. 

Jesus did not pay it all in any legal sense. What 
he did was the full measure of human possibility 
and divine power. Generations of saints, as well as 
generations of sinners, have paid somewhat of sin's 
penalty, both before and since. 

18 



PRE A CHMENTS 



The Forgiveness of Sins 

Neither has God yet been able to forgive it all. 
You see, forgiveness is not merely a state of mind. 
It is the work and ministry of love which takes sin 
away. G-od's state of mind was never anything 
other than love. In Jesus that Love found a means 
thru which sin could -be removed from the lives 
and characters of his children. 

It is not all done yet. 

Every sin in the universe is a sin against every 
being in the universe. 

I believe in the forgiveness of sins as being my 
duty and responsibility. When Jesus told people 
that they were to be responsible for the forgiveness 
of sin, that their binding or loosing on earth would 
be bound or loosed in heaven, they lifted their hands 
in holy horror and exclaimed, " Who can forgive sins 
save God only?" They did not want the task. 
Nevertheless, it is a human duty, waiting for human 
hands that are now as reluctant as then to under- 
take it. 

The sin of Wall Street and the sin of the Bowery, 
the sins of labor and the sins of capital must be 
borne away by human hands. 

Men are slow to believe in the length and breadth 
and hight and depth of the forgiveness of God, 
because it is the condemnation of human vengeance. 
I know of no theme upon which there is so inade- 
quate literature as this. We haven't thought it out 
yet, nor has the immensity of it and the honesty of 
it entered into our conception. 

God is not vengeful. His state of mind is quite 



19 



LITTLE 

The Forgiveness of Sins 

equal to your sublimest conception of goodness. In 
His mind sin has always been forgiven. 

I know a man who has not collected a debt in 
years— ever since the honest meaning of " forgive us 
our debts as we forgive our debtors " dawned upon 
him. He has lost some money by this remarkable 
course, but he has gained something worth more 
than money. 

All accounts should be squared up once in twenty- 
four hours. Let not the sun go down while in your 
strong box you hold a cinch on your neighbor. 

There is the forgiving state of mind, and there is 
forgiveness as an achievement. Mark the difference. 

The forgiving state of mind is never conditioned 
on repentance. God is always in a forgiving state of 
mind ; and so must I be, however men may wrong me. 

The achievement of forgiveness is not accom- 
plished until the practice and willingness of wrong 
doing be taken away from the wrong doer. This I 
must do for the man who wrongs me. But the pos- 
sibility of this is, by a natural law, conditioned on 
repentance. Forgiveness cannot be achieved except 
in repentance. 

Jesus' prayer of forgiveness when being nailed to 
the cross, and Stephen's when being stoned to death, 
are illustrations of the way for you and me to do 
when people say mean things about us, or steal our 
gold watch, or owe us a grocery bill. 

When they summon us before councils, and put 
us out of synagogues and declare that we do not 
believe in the Bible, and do the other things to us 

20 



PRE A CHMENTS 



The Forgiveness of Sins 

that they did to Jesus, we are to forgive as He did. 

There is not in the moral universe a power equal 
to forgiveness in its ability to take meanness out of 
the human heart. 

I believe in the annihilation of sin. 



21 



Preaching and Practice 



The preachers have never been discounted, but 
have always had their full share of regard, and have 
been the highest paid and best fed class in society, 
with a few notable exceptions. They need no adula- 
tion from me. 

It is a good thing "to practice what you preach," 
provided you preach a good thing. 

It is better to preach a good thing, even if you 
fail to practice it, than it is to both preach and prac- 
tice evil. Preaching is easier than practice, and of 
less consequence, but it has its value even when there 
is no parallel practice accompanying it. 

Preaching sometimes supplants practice, destroys 
it, prevents it. Much of the preaching about the 
"philosophy of the plan of salvation" actually pre- 
vents a real work of salvation being carried on. It 
takes it out of the hands of men, off the earth, and 
thus salvation becomes a mere idea, instead of being 
the daily work of men and women. 

So it is also with Atonement. It has been too 
much preached and too little practiced. No theory 
of Atonement can be the truth. Atonement is life 
and labor. It is not a matter of words nor of under- 
standing, but a matter of work and of practice. 

Atonement is to be practiced by Christians. 

The life of Jesus is being much preached about 
lately. This is a good sign. I think that it is being 
lived some, too. Certainly preaching about it is 
wasted energy if it doesn't lead somewhat to the 
living of it. What does all the studying about it 



22 



PRE A CHMENTS 



Preaching and Practice 

and " believing " in it amount to if it fails to amount 
to living in some measure the Christ-life ? " Believ- 
ing "is nothing in itself. There is altogether too 
much banking on it. You may "believe" in every- 
thing good and be a devil. 

Take the matter of forgiveness. It is not a 
matter of words, nor a state of mind. You cannot 
forgive merely with your tongue and your "heart." 
To forgive is to "bear away " sin, to remove it. to 
take it out of the life and character of the sinner. 
It is a matter of practice. It is a labor of love. 

By preaching comes edification—? 

Practice makes perfect. 

Our churches are preaching institutions. Prac- 
tice, 10 them, is altogether an incidental affair. 
They are built, lighted, heated, seated, and run for 
the preaching business. One might fairly infer from 
their construction, their organization, and their con- 
duct that Christianity consists merely in preaching 
and listening. Our "ministry" is trained, not for 
ministering but for preaching. 

Nevertheless there are coming to be in this world 
institutions for the practice of Christianity. It is 
possible (most "Christians" haven't found it out 
yet) to construct a church building for the practice 
of Christianity, and to organize a church member- 
ship for doing the doctrines. We have so far degen- 
erated that the terms "church work " and "Chris- 
tian work " signify little else than talk. They have 
no application among us to the economics and politics 
of life. Business and industry are pagan, and may 

23 



PRE A CHMENTS 



Preaching and Practice 

be, but oh, how zealous we are that other people's 
talk-Christianity shall be flawlessly orthodox ! 

Our sin has already found us out, — that is, the 
common people, "the world, " has already found out 
our sin. They know that we do not practice Chris- 
tianity. The Chinese and Japs know it. They care 
very little about our Talkianity. They cannot be 
expected to take us more seriously than we take our- 
selves. 

In the application of practical Christianity to the 
present problems of life is the unexplored territory 
for the moral adventure of the finest lot of men and 
women that ever walked the earth It is the field 
wherein there is greatest power to be wielded and 
greatest glory to be won. Its highway still leads to 
Calvary, but beyond the Calvary of this new social 
sacrifice there is a social resurrection to be achieved. 

The practices of Christ will save the world. 



24 



" Distance Lends Enchantment; 
Familiarity Breeds Contempt 



Against the general application of this pagan 
proverb I protest with all my soul. No man should 
ever use it without careful and exact qualifications. 
Its untruthfulness is greater than its truth. 

I can go so far as to say that distance does lend 
enchantment to the minds of savages, fools, and 
some small children, and that familiarity breeds con- 
tempt in the minds of the contemptible. This much 
of the proverb I will not dispute. But I object to 
the attributing of the "failings "of the undeveloped 
and degenerated to humanity in a general way. 

The average man or woman is neither a fool nor 
a savage. Seeing they perceive, and hearing they 
understand, — pretty well. They can safely be per- 
mitted to enter the holy of holies, and look, listen, 
and examine. Human development has now gone 
too far to permit of the practices of the dark ages. 
No longer can you build up reverence for the Bible 
or the church by signs to keep off the grass. Already 
the populace has broken over the bounds of estab- 
lished human authority and is abroad on the fields of 
divine authority and revelation, pulling up, examin- 
ing roots, testing, comparing, and deciding what is 
good and what is not, what is alive and what is dead, 
what belongs to the future and what belongs to the 
past. If this sort of familiarity doesn't breed the 
deepest and truest reverence then there is no hope 
for mankind. 



25 



LITTLE 

"Distance Lends Enchantment; Familiarity Breeds Contempt" 

An ignorant enchantment is one thine ; an intel- 
ligent reverence is quite another. If enchantment 
is the state you wish to produce then the methods of 
Mosaism and Romanism will be effective with certain 
classes of people, but you should be in the lock-up. 

One of the pulpit blasphemies we are all familiar 
with is, "Thou art a God that hidest thyself." His 
whole Life and Work are revelation and expression. 
His whole thought for mankind is that we should 
have familiarity with all that is divine and holy — 
handle it, pry into it, eat and drink with it. We 
wear fig leaves and hide among the trees— and call it 
reverence ! The voice of Elohim calls us into the 
Presence, where the light and the universe may be 
familiar with us, and where we shall talk with God. 
Familiarity is God's way of making men and women 
of us. From the fruit of the tree of the knowledge 
of good and evil down to the inside history of modern 
ecclesiastical wire-pulling, we insist upon knowing 
rather than taking for granted. There was a time 
when men were supposed to know only that about 
God which priests told them. The priests lied about 
Him, but even their lies were enchanting. Some of 
them are at it yet, but the enchantment is passing 
away. Even the enchantment of broadcloth and 
the black cravat is a thing of the past. We insist 
upon asking "Why ? " 

I am not afraid of the friendship of friends. I 
do not fear that it will spoil on closer acquaintance.. 
I do not appreciate the necessity of keeping them at 
a distance in order to maintain their respect. If it 



26 



PRE A CHMENTS 



"Distance Lends Enchantment; Familiarity Breeds Contempt" 

happens in some cases, that the whole truth spoil a 
friendship, then it is better so than that it should 
have been avoided. The longing of my heart is for 
revelation and expression. No man can know more 
about me than I long for him to know. Intimacies 
are harmful only when they are exclusive, and then 
they are the very opposite of familiarity. We need 
exposing to the eyes of the universe, and we are 
going to get it. For One to know us thru and thru 
is good, but for every one to know us thru and thru 
will be better. 

If you hold any man in contempt it is because you 
don't know him as well as you might. Your knowl- 
edge of him is superficial. Your eyes are " holden.'* 
If you are cultivating a choice friendship by the 
common methods of self-concealment you are but 
paving the way for a falling out. No one of us can 
afford to be anything in reality that we should be 
unwilling for all the universe to know about. 

JUDGMENT is coming. The universe will be 
the jury, and will have all the evidence. 

The Judgment will be universal familiarity. 

It will not breed contempt. 

When we know as also we are known we shall love 
and revere. 

Why shouldn't we do it here and now ? 



27 



Salvation 



No subject is more talked about and less under- 
stood. 

From what shall we seek salvation ? 

Certainly not from the wrath of God. 

I would rather be dealt with by the wrath of a 
wise G-od than by the kindness of a foolish man. 

There is nothing in a wise God's plans for me that 
I can seek to avoid. If he plans punishment it is 
because I need it— it is good— and I must not be 
saved from it. No savior can do me a kindness by 
delivering me from God nor from anything that God 
conceives or plans. Sinful as I am, let me fall into 
the hands of the living God, and let His wisdom be 
done. 

Not from punishment but from sin, not from God 
but from myself, let me be saved. 

From selfishness and unfaith, from ignorance and 
bigotry, from narrowness and stupidity, from vice 
and suspicion, from retrogression and death, from 
pestilence and famine, Good Lord deliver us. 

Salvation takes place every day. It is a continu- 
ous process. If you ever become entirely saved, you 
will be in great danger of being lost. It's a " cosmic 
process." It antedates the deliverance from Egypt 
and will outlast the Judgment. 

Salvation is harmony with God ; it is attainment 
of the purpose and end of being; it leads to the ful- 
filment of life ; it may directly involve suffering and 
sorrow ; it certainly is not repudiation of natural 
law nor deliverance from needed discipline. 

28 



PRE A CHMENTS 



Salvation 



Salvation accomplishes at-one-ment between us 
and Our Father. There are no make-believes nor 
imputations involved. It is a genuine ministry. It 
is the great uplifting out of darkness into light. 

The necessity for vicarious suffering is not of 
divine but of human origin. The love of God is 
older than Christian theology. It was before there 
was any one to share the vicarious life. 

Salvation is for this life and this world. All the 
redemptive agencies of a divine universe are em- 
ployed upon the life that now is. There is no King- 
dom of Heaven unless it is at hand. Religious effort 
is misdirected except as it applies to this present 
life. 

There is no salvation in segregation. We are all 
bound up together. He that seeketh his own salva- 
tion shall lose it. It can be found only in the salva- 
tion of others. It can be realized only as the whole 
is saved. The precious little canoe they call the Ark 
of Safety in revival meetings, wherein but one can 
ride and he only by looking wholly to his own safety, 
capsizes too easily. If there is such an Ark it is a 
big one, and on it they bear one another's burdens. 

The ecclesiastical catalog of the saved and the 
lost isn't up to date ; don't trust it ! They know so 
little about salvation that they never venture to 
declare a man lost when preaching his funeral ser- 
mon. Yet they declare him lost beyond a doubt 
when expounding their mechanical plan of salvation 
in a revival meeting. It is poor doctrine that cannot 
hold its own in the presence of death. They are 



29 



PRE A CHMENTS 



Salvation 

€onsistent down in the Cumberland Mountains where 
they chisel into the gravestones of departed saints 
"M. B. C." (member of the Baptist church) as tho a 
passport might be useful in the Judgment. 

By this year's crop shall ye know them! I 
wouldn't give much for the salvation of the man 
who doesn't believe it possible to love one's neighbor 
as one's self, however regular he may be in going to 
prayer-meeting and "testifying," 

The salvation that God is achieving is greater 
than man's mind comprehends. The agony and dis- 
tress of the indebted, the suffering of the enslaved, 
the overburdening of the weak, the ignorance of the 
uneducated, the conflicts and bitterness of industrial 
warfare, and the shame of every form of sin and 
wrong are the groanings and anguish of a waiting 
world. 

And for what does it wait ? 

For the church to see that salvation is something 
real, having to do with this present life. 



30 



The Heresy Hunter 



A "good" neighbor of mine recently asked a 
friend in solemn seriousness if she thought that I, 
by any possibility, would be fortunate enough to get 
to heaven. The question was asked simply because 
in the mind of the questioner (and there are others) 
there was a serious doubt on the subject. These 
doubts, I believe, do not arise from my manner of 
life, but from a prevailing idea, among a small circle 
of people who do not read, that I am not orthodox. 
They have been told that I am "unsound" in doc- 
trine, and they take it more to heart than if I were 
a thief or the most pitiless wage-slave driver in the 
land. 

The fact of the mattter is that a man may be a 
thief, bet on horse races, deny in toto the spirit of 
Jesus, rob widows and orphans, oppress the poor, 
and go right straight along to heaven, according to 
the religious ethics of the orthodox, provided only 
that he is sound in doctrine. If he wishes to add 
more flagrant sins to the list, he needs, in order to 
maintain his standing in the religious community, 
simply to have money. The orthodox will not ask 
how he got his money. It may be deep-dyed with 
the blood of oppression— the orthodox care not. It 
is no part of their system to establish righteousness 
on earth. They do not even know what that might 
be. Their religion is not a matter of relations ; it is 
simply a set of notions. 

To be orthodox and sound in doctrine consists, in 
their eyes, not in knowing and believing the truth, 

31 



LITTLE 

The Heresy Hunters 



not in following after it and obeying it. but in shut- 
ting your eyes to their faults, in refraining from all 
careful thinking, in going to meeting to listen and 
to nod, and in having just as few ideas inside of 
your own nodding noddle as possible. 

The alternative? Well, it is simply if you are 
not orthodox you are going to hell. 

Now the heresy hunter is the man or woman who 
enforces all this. God will not enforce it, so some- 
body else has to. This is the heresy hunter. He 
must see to it that people do not get into heaven 
without proper qualifications. He is a self-appoi nted 
keeper of "St. Peter's gate." By virtue of his 
watchfulness and energy, many a heretic who would 
have defiled the golden streets of the New Jerusa- 
lem, as he thinks, has been cast down into the 
bottomless pit. The more souls he casts out of the 
synagog the more glory he accounts himself as 
worthy of. 

He is a heresy spreader. As soon as he hears of 
some one who disbelieves that Moses wrote the story 
of his own death and burial or that a whale swal- 
lowed Jonah, he starts up and down the community 
declaring that So-and-so "don't believe in the Bible." 
He is ignorant of the fact that every time he repeats 
his gossip he is guilty of falsehood, and worse yet, 
tears down at least a little bit of somebody's faith. 
Every time he starts a persecution of his heretic he 
injures many a little one and puts himself in a most 
ridiculous light. 

He will lie to carry his point. 

32 



PRE A CHMENTS 



The Heresy Hunters 

He does not know the meaning of forgiveness, 
nor love, nor patience, nor faith. 

He thinks he knows it all. 

He is not willing to trust God with his own uni- 
verse. 

God pities the heresy hunter and will have mercy 
on him. By infinite patience He will yet show him 
that a life is greater than a creed. He will forgive 
his bigotry and meddlesomeness, and will take his 
poor lean soul in to dwell with the heretics in eternal 
life. Amen. 



33 



A Deacon's Dignity 



I have seen trouble between my deacons before 
now about matters that were pitifully small and 
insignificant,— such, for instance, as the night of 
the parsonage back fence, and the color of the covers 
on the hymn-books, and the theatrical presentation 
of Santa Claus in the Christmas Sunday School 
exercises ; but these little troubles are all easily and 
quickly forgotten, the hatchet is buried, and the 
deacons, being men of grace and ordinary goodness, 
are as warm friends as ever. There is one point, how- 
ever, at which my deacons are so very sensitive that 
when wounded the effect is lasting. This is the 
point of a deacon's dignity. Touch it and you have 
instantly aroused every element of combativeness 
and resentment in his old "original" nature. Probe 
it and you have stirred to its depths his pride and 
his sense of himself. 

"Righteous indignation " is the result. 

Generally speaking these deacons are among the 
best men in the community. The peculiar tempta- 
tions of their "office," like those of the clergy itself, 
bespeak a charitable view of their shortcomings. 
The ecclesiastical pedestal upon which they are 
placed has its own peculiar temptations. It is a 
deadly enemy to genuineness. If the good deacon 
doesn't pose he is a hero! If, in his zeal for the 
"good name " of the church, he never patches up a 
fair exterior for " worldly eyes " to look upon, while 
within there is rottenness and dead men, then is he 
indeed a rare soul. If. in the counsels of his own 



34 



PRE A CHMENTS 



A Deacon's Dignity 

spirit, he will not smother repentance with the cloak 
of a deacon's dignity, he is an unusual deacon and 
does not often vote with majorities. 

Now the deacon is perfectly right in his feeling 
that the dignity of the deaconate must be preserved. 
Many deacons err, however, in the conception that 
dignity is something that can be wrapped around 
any old carcass by a majority vote or the laying on 
of hands. Dignity is neither pose, poise, nor pre- 
ciseness. It is neither a mantle nor a title. It is 
not respectability, nor appearances, nor popular 
good opinions, nor the state of being held in rever- 
ence by others. It is service with love. It is "serv- 
ing tables. " The man who stands behind your chair 
while you eat at table, the man who blacks your 
boots, the street cleaner, the garbage monger, the 
scavenger scullion, the baggage smasher, the red- 
faced cook in your kitchen, the makers of bread and 
the vinters of wine,— these all are doing the holy 
work for which deacons were set apart, and if they 
but do it for love's sake they are the world's true 
deaconate. Herein is dignity, not that a man appear 
to be somebody, but that he be some real relation to 
I AM in doing a man's share of the world's work. 
And a deacon's dignity? Why, it was very simple 
and very real with Stephen and Philip, et al. They 
did drudgery for the church. It was a high grade 

Of GOODFOTtSOMETHINGNESS. 

The true dignity of a deacon is not different in 
kind from that of a common man. It ought, how. 
ever, to stand for a peculiar love and respect in 

35 



PRE A CHMENTS 



A Deacon's Dignity 

which he is held by the people and which grows not 
out of his office but out of the loving services— the 
distinctly loving services— and Christ-like spirit of 
his life. 

It is impossible to offend a man's real dignity by 
telling the truth about him. If the truth offends 
anything it offends shams. 

Sham dignity struts about the church aisles and 
puts the religion of Jesus to shame. With com- 
pressed lips and stately steps it passes around the 
communion cup and the collection basket— and they 
say it isn't safe to trade horses with ! 

The spiritual noblemen of rugged meekness, 
genuineness, integrity, and selfless devotion to the 
ideal, some of whom for the sake of service have 
permitted the deaconate to be forced upon them, 
have been and are the richest heritage of human 
history. Their dignity is not rivaled by thrones nor 
is it equaled by all the pomp on earth. It is even 
greater than the grandeur of the mountains or the 
majesty of the ocean. 

The word deacon means the very opposite to "boss 
of the church." 

Diakonos is Greek for servant. 

The amount of dignity in it depends upon the 
genuineness and the intensity of its love. 



ob 



Providence 

I believe in God, the father of all. 

He has mapped out the course of my life for me 
as I could not have done. It has been an unfolding' 
over which I have not presided, but out of which I 
myself have come. 

I am not primary cause ; and yet I seem to reach 
It, so that I am in touch with It, somewhere in the 
depths of unrevealed Life, awake and asleep. I have 
nothing whatever to do with the inclination of the 
earth's axis to the plane of its orbit, upon which 
every human life depends, nor do my friends, the 
doctors, know a tuppenny worth about the prevention 
of bubonic plague ; and yet I go on journeys and 
sleep nights as if I had the equilibrium of things 
locked up within myself. 

I don't know why lightning strikes so many church 
steeples, unless it is because they are such good con- 
ductors. But I do know that the waves engulfed 
Galveston because the unmitigated greed of the 
Southern Pacific built a city where common sense 
and love would not have permitted it to be, and the 
flood overwhelmed Johnstown because of the crimi- 
nal negligence of a sportingclub, and the missionaries 
in China were murdered because their Christianity 
stands for commercial aggression, and the famine in 
India could have been avoided if the English Imperial 
army had been an army of workers instead of an 
army of fighters. There is plenty I can't understand 
but when it's as plain as the nose on your face I 
refuse to make God responsible for what is done by 
human greed. 



LITTLE 

Providence 

Seltish men can interfere with the workings of 
Providence— somewhat. 

But all the legions of darkness cannot take the 
providence of God out of my life. I never had any 
good luck. I have no lucky star. I am in the habit 
of seeing the new moon over my left shoulder. I 
care nothing about horse-shoes, and am constantly 
associated with the number "13." but! have never 
been out of God's love and care, and "bad luck" 
never has caught me. It never will. 

I have seen the wicked making a bigger spread of 
himself than David ever saw, nor do I think his 
prosperity indicates a miscarriage of Providence. 
God loves his enemies. He protects the wicked and 
provides for them and shields them and yearns over 
them, with love that we are not good enough to 
imagine. He is not the father of "good" folks only. 

Providence isn't altogether a matter of super- 
natural force and ministry. Eain and sunshine 
have something to do with the price of bread, but 
not nearly so much as the Chicago Board of Trade. 
In addition to the Lord's Prayer petition for daily 
bread, there must be justice and honesty and fair 
dealings and mercy between men before all the hun- 
gry can eat. Providence does not merely store away 
unlimited provisions for light and heat in the bowels 
of the earth, but must also provide a way to get it 
out and transport it and burn it, and then must see 
to it that one man doesn't get it all. 

Providence is a Trust, too big for New Jersey, 
incorporated under the Kingdom of Heaven. We're 

38 



PRE A CHMENTS 



Providence 

all in the Trust. We can contribute to its harmony, 
or we can introduce discord and frustrate its workings, 
but we cannot break it up. It is so well organized 
that abundant provision is made for all, and but few 
actually starve, and they suffer only because some- 
body steals their share. 

More tender than all the mother-love of earth is 
the love of God, and Providence stands for more than 
this,— it is the love and ministry of humanity added 
to the love of God. It is the ministry of God and 
the children of God to human need. 

I shall not be forgotten. I cannot be afraid. 

There is no reform that shall be accomplished 
except it be a work of Providence. Neither shall any 
of God's reforms fail. I can think of only one thing 
in which I think God has a deeper, keener interest 
than in making the children of earth comfortable 
and happy under conditions of peace and justice, and 
that is in making the best possible men and women 
of them. 

Tho He slay me and they deceive me, yet will I 
trust Him and believe in them. 



39 



Services" and Service 



The hypnotism of words is a tearful thing-. You say 
you have been attending "divine service. " You al- 
most think you have. But you don't really mean 
"service," you mean "meeting." You did not 
serve anybody. You wore your best clothes and acted 
your prettiest no doubt, all of which is good, but is 
not service. You said prayers or gave testimony or 
real money, and your intentions were good, and it 
was a good place to be if you couldn't find a better, 
but there was no service about your being there except 
as it was a service to your own better self, or, in an 
indirect way, a service to the world in the mainte- 
nance of public meetings of that sort. To call your 
religious meeting divine services is to assume a high 
and mighty importance for them that they don't 
possess. What do they do for God? Call them meet- 
ings, for that is what they are. There is plenty to 
be done for G-od and men. There is need enough and 
work enough to do. G-od wants your service and so 
do men. There are cups of cold water and more im- 
portant things awaiting your hand. You should 
serve God if you would. But these meetings or 
ik talkings " of yours are not the thing. Talk is lip- 
service, which the Bible refers to in terms of de- 
preciation. Talk is about all your meetings amount 
to— and you call them "services." You display your 
fine toggery, if you have any, you meet your best 
friends pleasantly, you listen comfortably, and sing 
sweetly,— and you call it "service. " You think your 
best thoughts, perhaps, and your soul is stirred by 



40 



PRE A CHMENTS 



"Services" and Service 

the truth, and your heart lifted in pure and good 
emotions, —and you call this " services. " What can 
have happened to the word ! Has it any meaning left 
to your mind ? Who is served by your high feasts 
and your solemn assemblies ? 

service. Do something for somebody. Help 
somebody, somewhere, somehow. Lend a hand. 
This is your excuse for existence, your claim to the 
room you take up, your defense in court of the uni- 
verse. "Inasmuch as ye have done " something for 
somebody you have been engaged in divine services. 
Don't confuse this with your weekly talkery. 

public service. This is a step higher. The 
more people served the more value the service. 
Talking to a congregation of people is a mild form of 
public service. There are higher and more important, 
as well as more elementary and more necessary forms. 
Public service is not appreciated as quickly as private 
services are, but it is longer remembered. The com- 
mon good, the common necessities, the common con- 
venience, the common culture, the common virtue, 
and the common prosperity of all the people call for 
all your strength and all of mine in the common ser- 
vice. Talk about it if you must and will, but don't 
call the talk "public services." 

divine service. It is all one. Not one thing 
hinted at is apart from the divine service. The rail- 
roads and telegraphs, the post-office and the store, the 
air, the sunshine, the rain, the horse, and the motor, 
the girl, and the man (be he a priest or no) are all 
engaged in Divine Service. Is the church meeting 



41 



PRE A CHMENTS 



"Service" and Services 

a divine service? Then is also the political mass 
meeting (this is partizan, the other denominational), 
the meetings of congress, the assemblies of saints in 
legislative halls, the convocations of men in which 
are determined questions of labor and industry that 
settle the state of life here and hereafter for a thou- 
sand men, their families, and their children's children. 
Let us go to divine service my brethren ; let us 
all go, let us always go. Every Son of every man as 
he awakes in the new strength of Morning should 
look out upon the great world of human need and 
struggle and aspiration, and seeing ahead its glorious 
destiny and withal its grand significance, pronounce 
the worship of his soul as "my Father worketh 
hitherto and I work." 



42 



Money Makes the mare Go" 



Ever since the day when horse-trotting became a 
professional sport, thus affording an easy and con- 
venient method whereby a fool and his money might 
be soon parted, this maxim has held full sway as a 
cardinal tenet in the faith of the people. Were it 
merely a saying among horse jockeys, I should be 
wasting my time by giving attention to it, but it is- 
alike the faith of the trotting fraternity and 
ecclesiastical circles, the ring and the pulpit, the 
race-course and the prayermeeting. Christians be- 
lieve in the soundness of this maxim, and even Pro- 
hibitionists and Reformers bow before the self-evi- 
dent inferential wisdom that circles like a halo 
around these magic words. 

In denying them, I wish to say in the first place 
that they are true. Money makes the mare go. It 
is the motive power underneath horse-trotting. It 
is the sufficient cause of a great class of human ac- 
tivities having similar ethical quality. It is, for in- 
stance, for the sake of money that our la-dies hold 
their fair and festival next week. This memorial 
tablet at my right, which you are compelled to look 
at whenever you come to church however much you 
weary of seeing it, was put- there not to do you 
good, for it distracts your thoughts, nor was it be- 
cause the person whose name it bears was excep- 
tionally good, nor was it for any good purpose what- 
ever. It was for money. Many are the noble souls 
who have habitually worshiped within these historic 
walls, sitting in the back seats under the gallery be- 



43 



LITTLE 

" Money Makes the Mare Go " 

cause of tbeir poverty, and wbo are now buried in 
nameless graves because of their lack of money. Yes, 
money gives prominence in the church. It receives 
the best seats, it brings the minister around quite 
as often as you care to see him, and, when spelled 
with a capital M it deprives him when at your house, 
of that lofty professional bearing that distinguishes 
him when walking down Peterkin's alley. 

Moreover, my friends, money makes men fight. 
To it is due all the ignominious glory of warfare and 
competition. While our orthodox friends are be- 
wailing the loss of hell-fire and brimstone from the 
popular faith, they can find comfort in the fact that 
money keeps things pretty hot down here. It is the 
means whereby Some deprive Others of the fruits of 
their labor, and then Lessyet contrive to get them 
away from Some, and afterwards Fewerstill squeeze 
them out of Lessyet. So that on the whole it is the 
cause of much jangling and bitterness and strife. 
Yes, it makes the mare go, it keeps the saloons open, 
it diverts the work and saps the energies of churches, 
and it makes bitter enemies out of those who should 
be sweet brothers. 

These, however, are not the meanings of your 
maxim to you. What you mean by these words is 
that the great efficient motive, the secret of action 
and power, the charm of influence, and the incentive 
to strenuousness in hitman life is money. This I deny 
— flat. The maxim is a contradiction of faith, hope, 
and love. It is the antithesis of Christianity. 
Those things that monev does are not the world's 



44 



PRE A CHMENTS 



" Money Makes the Mare Go " 

work, but accidents, abortions, distortions, incidents. 
Not by money but by faith the business of the world 
is conducted. Faith is greater than money— there is 
more of it, and it has more dynamic virtue to the 
cubic inch. By faith the exchanges of the world are 
conducted. By hope its enterprises are launched 
and its seed sown. By love its cradles are rocked 
and its services rendered. By money its sons and 
daughters are snared and their eyes blinded to the 
Significance of Life. 

The strongest energies in the world are its love- 
energies. Men will yet do for love what money can- 
not hire them to do. Money itself becomes the 
obedient servant of these love-energies and flows out 
of the pocket-book in the channels of service. You 
have been filling your eyes with little things. You 
have been staring at the saloon and the sewing 
society until you were actually convinced that the 
things controlled by money were of prime importance. 
They are like barnacles as compared to the ship. 
The great achievements of the world have been vic- 
tories of faith and love. 



45 



The Sacred and the Secular 



Sacredness attaches to anything by its association 
with life. 

I am unwilling to think of anything that God 
sustains as being other than sacred. Since all things 
consist in Him, all things are sacred. 

We are speaking of things, 

God is not limited by nor excluded from things. 

He has his way with things. 

As to buildings and places : how can we think of 
one building in a village apart from all others as be- 
ing sacred ? Is the church more sacred than the 
home ? If so, it is because that in it center more of 
divine life and human life than in the home, and not 
because it is a church. If the schoolhouse has more 
to do with the lives of God and of the children of men 
than the church has, then the schoolhouse is more 
sacred than the church. 

I know of church buildings that are associated 
with more strife and bickering and persecution and 
egotistical bigotry and small jealousy than any other 
buildings in the communities where they are located. 
They are not especially sacred. No amount of mum- 
mery and palaver could make them so. The whole 
earth is consecrated ground, if you but knew it. It 
has not been consecrated by the mummery of priests, 
but by the love of God and the labor of the people. 

As to times and seasons : one man esteemeth one 
day above another, other men esteem all days alike ; 
let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind, 

46 



PRE A CHMENTS 



The Sacred and the Secular 

but let no man dare to call nor to really make any 
day unholy, immoral, a day of bitterness and sorrow, 
a day of Mammon service with God left out. One 
day for God and six days for Mammon is the false 
program of established Christianity. Ye cannot do it. 
You cannot serve God one bit better, nor so well, on 
Sunday as you can on the work days. Sunday is not 
God's clay in any sense in which the others are not 
God's days. It is a rest day, and should be observed, 
but resting and going to meeting are not more sacred, 
surely, than labor and the communion of common 
life. If we are children of God we have no business 
to touch with the tips of our fingers that which we 
do not sanctify with love, on any clay. Keeping Sun- 
day scrupulously and sweltering in selfishness six 
days in the week is the moral tragedy of a prostituted 
truth. There must be a day of rest, but more holy 
than the days of work it cannot be. 

As to vocations the priests and parsons of religious 
function are holy men— if they are, but what about 
the priests of farm and shop and the priestesses of the 
cook stove? We superficially "Keverend" a class of 
men who are not more good nor holy nor valuable 
nor unselfish than the great mass of their unrever- 
ended fellows and supporters. If mine is a "sacred 
calling" then surely is that also of the fellow who 
makes the bread I must eat and the clothes I must 
wear. But no priest is sacred because of his job, nor 
is his vocation a sacred one because of the laying on 
of men's hands. Sacredness must be measured by 
service and ministry. 



47 



* LITTLE 

The Sacred and the Secular 

Think of the old doctor in "Beside the Bonnie 
Briar Bush. " 

Reverend doctor, I should most heartily say. 
Men call his job a secular one, but there is nothing 
more sacred than the intrinsic good-for-something- 
nessof such a life and the sterling nobility of such a 
character. 

Some people cannot see the difference between 
religion and the two-by-four preachers who prosti- 
tute it. Otherscannot distinguish between a broom 
and a bean-pole. For such these words are not writ- 
ten. No man has more sincere reverence for holiness 
than I have, only it doesn't attach in a chunk to a 
certain privileged set. It is the Real Thing I am 
after because 1 love and adore it. 

Nothing is secular but selfishness and sin. 

Clericalism cannot make them sacred. 

Human life is sacred and he who dares to secular- 
ize it is guilty of profanity. Piety is a nice thing, 
but it isn't piety that I am talking about. It is the 
labor and the rest of a strong man, the ministry and 
the patience of a sweet woman, the play and the 
growth of children,— it is such as these, more than 
piety, that makes God's world. God is in these, and 
they are holy. 

A little child's life is more sacred than a street- 
car. A man's hand is more sacred than a coupling- 
iron. A clerk's brain is more sacred than stocks and 
bonds in a bull market. A mother's heart-strings 
are more sacred than any " military necessity " that 
exists today in this country or in England. Unhook 



48 



PRE A CHMENTS 



The Sacred and the Secular 

your ideas from the pegs marked "sacred" and shake 
them up a little and you will find that, like the stuff 
the magician takes out of a borrowed plug hat, they 
will expand until you cannot get them back into the 
hat again nor hang them up on the pegs any more. 

This is God's world. 

The daily life of the common people is the great- 
est and most sacred thing in it. 



49 



" Every Man for Himself, and the 
Devil Take the Hindmost " 



I have no copyright on this text. In fact it is the 
text of most of the preaching that is done nowadays, 
only it is not so announced by the preachers. If not 
apart of the plenarily inspired scriptures yet it is 
treated with high reverence and granted strict 
obedience. While I have not found it in the mul- 
lioned windows of our great cathedrals yet I have 
seen it engraved upon the living tables of men's 
hearts and guarded as a divine oracle. 

This text is a harbinger of great comfort which 
is vouchsafed unto us under these heads : 

1, Comfort for the Devil. It is herein plainly 
set forth that he shall get a full share of souls. The 
text is so unequivocal in this respect that it amounts 
to a mathematical certainty. The devil is always 
getting the hindmost and no matter how many he 
has gotten there is still another hindmost one, com- 
panionless, unprotected, forsaken, defenseless, ready 
to become his Satanic majesty's easy prey. Surely 
the Devil should not despair. His vocation is an 
easy one. He needeth not to courageously face a 
united band of brothers in order to reach his prey. 
The strong ones, by this beneficent arrangement, go 
on ahead, each mindful only of his own interests and 
welfare. He need not fear them ; their backs are to- 
ward the weak. Cheer up, old Devil, the maxims of 
Christendom are on your side ; it is well understood 
and fully expected that you shall have the lion's 
share. 



50 



PRE A CHMENTS 



" Every Man for Himself, and the Devil Take the Hindmost " 

2. Comfort for the hindmost. Think, my breth- 
ren, how sad their lot has been ! Alone, brotherless, 
helpless, their desolation has been sad indeed. The 
Devil shall get them. They shall be his, and, willy 
nilly, he shall be theirs. I'd rather have the Devil 
for my friend than to have no friend at all. Mourn 
not, therefore, my hindmost friends, as those who 
have no hope. 

3. Comfort for saints. Herein, after all, my 
friends, lies the superlative value of this text. The 
elect are hereby instructed to ease their consciences 
of all unnecessary compunctions and unprofitable 
qualms on the subject of the unfortunate weaklings 
and ne'er-do-wells whose untoward conditions and 
unhappy fates need not detract from the peace and 
equanimity of those whom God hath proposed. Let 
the saints who are struggling for high places and 
prominent positions take all the inferential comfort 
there is in this great declaration of the peoples' faith. 
Thy foot shall rest upon the necks of those who fail 
in life and thy heart shall not reproach thee, but on- 
ward shalt thou go in thy righteous, selfish struggle ! 
For thyself shalt thou strive, and thy soul shall be 
blessed. 

Best assured, brethren, that this comfort is solid 
comfort. It is founded upon the rock of popular 
faith. It is the voice of the people. It conforms to 
the easy way to get along. This great maxim, our 
text, is practical common sense. It is indisputable 
because it works. It works like a charm. It works 
to a pin point according to specifications. Let us 



51 



LITTLE 



" Every Man for Himself, and the Devil Take the Hindmost " 

have maxims, my brethren, that work as this one 
works, and we shall be rated as wise men in our day 
and generation. 

For further examples let me adduce the following : 

Blessed are the shrewd and strenuous, for they 
shall inherit the earth. 

Whatsoever a man wanteth, let him get it with 
all his might. 

Such are the maxims of the wise, very practical 
you will admit, and to be found translated into life 
not only on Superior street and Broadway, but on 
every farm and in every shop in the land. You be- 
lieve in them, not because you pretend to, but be- 
cause you li ve up to them. You admire the men who 
Succeed in this hellish way. You envy the upper- 
most, notwithstanding that they have helped the 
Devil so well. You would like to help the Devil, 
too. and be as well paid. You are satisfied that every 
man ought to lookout for number one first even if 
Jesus did forbid it. Jesus' teachings are a back 
number to your business creed and to your church. 

Wanted! An Honest Church. Not one that is 
honest enough to discard the teachings of Jesus 
which it does not believe a syllable of and substitute 
these devil maxims in which its people believe with 
all their hearts and live up to with all their lives,but 
one that is honest enough to really believe the teach- 
ings of Jesus and do them. It is high time for 
preachers and Sunday School superintendents to stop 
believing in these devil maxims. "Every man for 
himself " means the whole push for whatever 



52 



PRE A CHMENTS 



" Every Man for Himself, and the Devil Take the Hindmost " 

corresponds in reality to that term devil. Every 
man who accepts that maxim, be he "Christian " or 
not. and every business that accepts that maxim, and 
every church that accepts that maxim is the servant 
and coadjutor of the devil. 



53 



The Communion of Saints 



The communion of saints is important and holy 
business, but the communion of saints with sinners 
is more important and therefore holier. Whether we 
believe this or not. we have always professed to " be- 
lieve in the communion of saints. " Leaving the sin- 
ners out of the account then, for the time, we may 
well make sure that we really do believe this much 
of the ancient creed. 

The "saints "in question are, presumably, church 
members. Harrow it down, if you will, to members 
of the same denomination or of the same local 
church. You believe in the communion of these, do 
you not? Faintly the answer comes, "I do," and it 
involves no struggle and represents no elevation of 
soul. 

Communion is the state or the act of having things 
in common. Much of what is commonly called the 
communion of saints consists in nothing deeper than 
breathing the air of the same well- ventilated church 
building for an hour in the week. It is not so real 
and genuine as the communion of school children be- 
cause it involves fewer thoughts in common. Not- 
withstanding the creed, the most of saints do not 
believe in communion, and suffer just as little of it 
as possible. Not only do they separate their prop- 
erty as widely and absolutely from all other saints 
as can be done, but they also draw the mental and 
spiritual dividing lines as sharply as possible. The 
saints are not generally in the communion business. 
They require of each other high fences, warrantee 
deeds, iron-clad contracts, and the best of security. 



54 



PRE A CHMENTS 



The Communion of Saints 

Sainthood among us doesn't mean good credit, a 
strong backing, nor even reliable friends. Just what 
it does mean I am quite unable to say. 

God's universe was planned and built for the com- 
munion of saints. Every conceivable arrangement 
has been divinely made for the union of life. These 
arrangements would not be violated by any conceiv- 
able enlargement of the saint circle. Both the pres- 
sure of circumstances and the impulses of the human 
heart make for such a communion. The riches of the 
rich and the poverty of the poor, the strength of the 
strong and the need of the weak, the enthusiasm of 
youth and the dignity of age each need the other, 
and all need to flow into all in a divine communion. 
It is God's law in nature that no man liveth unto 
himself. Some saints succeed pretty well in seem- 
ing to do it, but this is only thru injustices done to 
their fellow men, including some weaker saints. 

Communion is not a matter of talk, nor of hope, 
nor of belief merely. It is a matter of fact, of 
things, of life, of reality and truth as well as faith. 
It is a matter of bread and wine— that is, of daily 
bread. The church which has refused to bring the 
things of life and labor— food, clothing, and shelter 
— into the sphere of her communion now starves up- 
on spiritual husks and is condemned under the dam- 
nation of pretense. She cannot build the Kingdom 
of God and leave property out. She cannot serve 
Mammon and God too. Her members cannot have 
sweet communion and soul fellowship while each 
clings tightly to the things he can call his own, and 

L.of C. 

55 



LITTLE 

The Communion of Saints 



they hold no treasure in common. The parks and 
streets and public buildings, the Commons, City Hall 
Park, the old Forum in its day, public works, libraries, 
the open church, and the sea— these we own in com- 
mon in these we have communion, and they stand 
for the unity of life and the fellowship of the race. 

Our bread and wine are yet to be redeemed. 
They are still held by the hand of selfishness— in the 
gall of bitterness and the bond of iniquity. They are 
made and hoarded and bartered in the service of the 
kingdom of Mammon, and await the redemption of 
Christ into the service and kingdom of Love. The 
minions of Mammon have crucified Love again and 
again, and Love can never triumph until that 
triumph covers the regions of bread and wine. 
There is communion in the sacrament when there is 
communion in the participants. How much there is 
of this I cannot judge, and how often the sacrament 
is a farce, a lie. and a blasphemy against God, against 
the possibilities of human fellowship, and against the 
very bread and wine, God only knows. The form 
does not constitute the fact. The symbol will not 
atone for sham and deceit. Every table is the Lord's 
table and on some of them there lacketh bread and 
wine ! 

There is no sorrow norsuffering nor ignorance nor 
narrow-mindedness nor sin that the communion of 
saints cannot alleviate and bear away. There is no 
need that it cannot supply, no wrong that it cannot 
right, no darkness that it cannot enlighten, no 
mourning that it cannot comfort. There is no 



56 



PRE A CHMENTS 



The Communion of Saints 

wealth that it could not sanctify, no poverty that it 
could not enrich, and no broken heart that it could 
not heal. There is no soul in the bitter loneliness 
of its struggle for life but the communion of saints 
might endue with an archangel's strength. All 
those to whom Christ came,— the sick, and they in 
prison, and debtors and scallawags, the submerged, 
and disinherited would find life and purity and 
power and salvation in the communion of saints. 
Yes, I believe in the communion of saints, and it 
means all the significance of religion to me, and 
measures the full depth of my willingness to do right 
and be good. It is the most heroic venture of life 
to dare to get close to my neighbor, and dare to let 
my neighbor get close to me. 



o/ 



God Helps Him Who Helps Himself 

So he does; the human hog prospers,— he of the 
long nosed, barbed-wire-proof breed. God helps him, 
you say. He seems likewise to nave helped a host of 
lazy, indolent people, whose prosperity is amazing. 
But there is something to be said on the other side. 

God helps the man who helps other people. 

God loves the man who helps other people. 

God helps and loves the man who helps others 
more than he does him who merely helps himself. 

Where, then, is the significance of your proverb ? 
What meaning has it ? This : It is religious sooth- 
ing-syrup of the devil's own concoction to make it 
easy for men to do wrong and to be selfish. 

Common profanity is less blasphemous. 

Suppose, now, that God does let a hog be a hog, 
live like a hog, and die like a hog, what of it? Is 
swill the only consideration ? Is the old junk that 
a man can pile up about himself, or the lands that 
he can keep from the use of the poor, or his accumu- 
lation of stocks and bonds better than God's love? 
Are they all worth as much as the love of a despised 
human being ? What does it signify if God does help 
him ? 

It would signify enormously if it were a matter of 
loveliness in the man. 

The man, for instance, who sits down at the 
family table and helps himself, while the children, or 
the others, whoever they may be, help themselves, 
or wait, or go without until he is done, is the man of 
your proverb, whom God helps. He is well fed. His 
stomach is prosperous. God has helped him. 



58 



PRE A CHMENTS 



God Helps Him Who Helps Himself 

I'd rather starve by inches, if necessary, helping- 
other people, and feel that the love of God for me 
had an element of fellowship in it. Men and women 
and little children whom God loved very much have 
starved to death. Some of the most heroic and 
patient toilers on earth today suffer need. Some of 
the hardest working and keenest witted people of 
this generation are unable to lay up a dollar. 

God help the man who helps himself sparingly 
and conscientiously to anything, be the owner 
Christian or pagan ! 

(Did you read about Jean Valjean ?) 

But the man who takes the whole, who gobbles up 
everything in sight, who steals a franchise or fore- 
closes a mortgage, who helps himself to all that greed 
can encompass is supposed to be all right. He does 
not go to the chain gang. Is that because God takes 
special pains to keep him out of the chain gang ? If 
so, then you may add that it is God's special favor 
that follows the man who corners foodstuffs, and the 
gang that is now putting up the price of coal. They 
let the price down for a couple of weeks in June, when 
the forehanded and prosperous at once put in their 
year's supply. By the first of July an advance was 
made, which is followed by a series of advances, plac- 
ing the product at its highest point just when it will 
be absolutely needed by the poor to keep body and 
soul together, and they must buy it by the bushel ! 

God has a lot to do with that arrangement, hasn't 
he? 

Energy and thrift are divinely rewarded. Crops 



59 



PRE A CHMENTS 



God Helps Him Who Helps Himself 

grow when they are taken care of. The natural 
resources of earth richly reward wit and work. God 
blesses faithful labor with magnificent increase of 
riches. And the labor is a social effort and the prod- 
uct a social product. God's help is to the whole of 
society. He has not neglected nor forgotten the 
least little child. Nor is his back turned upon com- 
mon thieves and lazy street loafers any more than it 
is upon John D. Rockefeller and William Waldorf 
Astor. God does not corrupt courts and pay soldiers 
in order to maintain the difference between big and 
little thieves and loafers. 

Yet God is in it all. We have not erred in giving 
God too great a place, but in not giving great enough 
place to men. We have denied the full measure of 
human responsibility for the smooth working of 
Divine Providence. 

God helps everybody. 

He wants everybody to help everybody else. 



60 



A Confession cf Faith 



A good deal is being said in these days, and needs 
to be said, about the uselessness, the danger, and 
even the harmful ness of creeds. The people have 
outlived the days of their bondage to creeds and 
are now declaring their spiritual independence. We 
refuse to be priest-ridden, and when we really "get 
converted " we refuse to be priests, and then when 
we take time to examine the old creed we find it is a 
natural barrier to fellowship so we refuse to set it 
up as a basis of fellowship. 

The people believe more now than they did in 
those old creedal days when their beliefs were so 
stringently limited. The creed was a limitation of 
belief. It did not draw the soul out into larger be- 
liefs than it would have cherished unaided. It 
named the bounds of permissible beli ef . The heretics 
have been people who believed more, not less, than 
was contained in the creeds,— not more than was con- 
tained in all the creeds but more than was contained 
in some particular creed. The removal of the creeds 
is simply a taking down of the bars, a removal of 
fences, and there is today more belief, more faith 
and consequently more hope and love because the 
creeds are gone. 

Did I say gone? I meant it. Those are the car- 
casses of the creeds about which the churches are 
holding discussions. The life is gone out of them. 
Their power is departed. It is a matter of inconse- 
quence how the carcasses are disposed of. 

The creed was not an expression of faith. It was 
a shibboleth. "Say this or you can't come in. " 



61 



LITTLE 

A Confession of Faith 

Faith does not die. It is eternal and unconquer- 
able. Its latest victory is over these dead creeds. 

A confession of faith was never more important 
than it is today. If you are a normal human being 
faith is in you. If you are normally in touch with 
the life and thought of the twentieth century you 
have more faith in God and in Humanity than has 
ever been given expression in any church. The time 
has now come when you can with comparative safety 
confess this faith. Your head will not be cut off, 
even if your job is. There is no question but that in 
almost every church in this land there are men and 
women who really believe something, who have dis- 
covered a glimpse of the universe and believe in it, 
who have found God and been captivated to the 
depths of soul sensation, who have entered i nto a race- 
consciousness which is the home element of faith. 
This faith should be confessed. All faith should be 
confessed. If it were, the kingdom would be come. 

A man can think hell, devil, and death, but a 
man should not have faith in hell, devil, or death. 
A man should not have faith in depravity and disease. 
Have faith in God, good, light, life, truth, love. Con- 
fess it. 

If some one could voice for the world a confession 
of its native, normal faith we should have a social 
pentecost. If one man or a thousand men could 
help men to own the cosmic human faith that is na- 
ture's gift to every soul the kingdom would come 
hastily. The fact is that you do believe in your 
fellowmen, you believe in love and truth and duty 



62 



PRE A CHMENTS 



A Confession of Faith 

you know that love begets love, that God is good, 
that error is self-destructive, that only good can last, 
that warfare is temporal, and peace eternal. You 
have far greater faith than you have confessed. The 
world has much more faith than has been acknowl- 
edged. The spiritual forces of redemption await the 
confession of the world's faith. 

I hope the new confession will never become a 
creed. 

Faith is power. Confessed faith is power at 
work. There is no such thing in the universe as 
faith without works. 

A true confession of faith will be a human witness 
to God's assurance of the coming of that day when 
food shall not rot on the western prairies while chil- 
dren starve, and when coal shall not be wasted by the 
thousands of tons in the valleys of the West Virginia 
hills while old men and women shiver and freeze and 
thousands of little children spend their time stealing 
gleanings of coal in the railroad yards. There shall 
be a day of sunshine, of justice, of song-birds and 
flowers, of peace and brotherhood. It shall be on 
earth as it is in heaven. O Lord, I believe ; help 
thou mine unbelief ! 



63 



I Believe 



A truth that needs always to be emphasized is 
that a creed is not religious nor religion altho it may 
deal with religious life. Life only can be religious, 
and religion is not language nor a form of words 
about life, but it is the art of life's relationships. A 
creed is valuable as expressing the development and 
comprehension of that art. It seems plain that in 
the very nature of the case it must be an imperfect 
expression. The beautifully worded longing of 
Browning's for that which would "all-express "him 
was a confession of this limitation. 

For myself, here are some of the things I can 

think of just now. 

* ■* 

I believe that to labor is better than to loaf. 

I believe that it is more blessed to give than to 
sell. 

I believe that justice is sweeter than charity. 

I believe that brotherhood is safer than life insur- 
ance. 

I believe that it is my duty to permit my business 
interests tu compete with those of my neighbor just 
as little as possible. 

I believe that my meanest neighbor cannot be 
mean enough to justify one thought of hatred or 
revenge or bitterness in my heart. 



64 



PRE A CHMENTS 



I Believe 



■X- * 

I believe that the Christianity of Jesus is the life 
to live whatever you may believe. 

I believe that it is better to love wrongdoers than 
to willingly punish them. 

I believe in God. I believe that all these best 
thoughts of mine are his thoughts, and that man 
has no right to separate himself in thoughts or life 
from God. 

I believe in unifying the whole universe (Atone- 
ment). 

I believe in the spirit of God in human flesh (In- 
carnation). 

I believe in the teaching of the spirit (Inspiration). 

I believe in the perfecting of creation (Kedemp- 
tion). 

I believe that thes are processes and works of 

God that are not finished, and that labor and love of 

the divine human spirit are now being poured out in 

their accomplishment. 

* •* 

I believe in the people. I believe that they are 
children of God who breathed into human bodies the 



65 



PREACHMENTS 



I Believe 

breath of Life. Sin and ignorance do not establish 
any doctrine of depravity. I believe in the natural 
and essential righteousness and integrity of the 
human life-impulses, and that not a change of 
nature is needed— not a counter-generation,— but 
regeneration— repeated-regeneration,— the continu- 
ation of the divine work of generation and creation. 

* * 

I believe in the communion of souls. 

* * 

I believe in the holy catholic association of life in 
a universal mutualism. 

I believe in every agency, instrumentality, and 
ministry—" mediator "and "source of divineauthor- 
ity" that helps to bring the people into the knowledge 

and fellowship of Good. 

* * 

If I had said simply that I believe in the imman- 
ence of the Good God, and the Unity of Life, I should 
have said all that I have said and all that I have left 
unsaid, so far as I can now think of it. 

There is much more that I believe, in fact I be- 
lieve in believing. I know but little, doubt much, 
and believe all things. 



66 



You should read 

Jjtth ^ Jeremiads 



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